Patrick Dahm

That German-Singapore Lawyer

Tag: Dispute resolution

Damage Prevention Costs in Maritime Logistics: German Law

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On 25 March 2026

In Law, Scribblings, Singapore

I had a very good time present­ing a paper at the 23rd Inter­na­tion­al Con­gress of Mari­time Arbit­rat­ors (ICMA XXIII) yes­ter­day: ‘Reim­burse­ment of Dam­age Pre­ven­tion Costs in Mari­time Logist­ics in the Event of an Anti­cip­ated Breach of Duty Accord­ing to (Cor­rectly Applied) Ger­man Law’. For any­one inter­ested, I am shar­ing the full paper (PDF) in a slightly expan­ded ver­sion: one para­graph of exactly 99 words at the very end that I had to cut from the con­fer­ence ver­sion to meet the rig­or­ous word lim­it, plus Eng­lish trans­la­tions of the rel­ev­ant Ger­man stat­utory pro­vi­sions in the footnotes.

Dr Patrick Dahm at the podium presenting his paper on damage prevention costs in maritime logistics at ICMA XXIII, Singapore, March 2026

Dissertation Summarised

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On 5 December 2025

In Law, Scribblings, Singapore

When my dis­ser­ta­tion came out late last year, a few col­leagues asked why a work so focused on Singa­pore, where Eng­lish is the lan­guage of the law, was writ­ten in Ger­man. Well, it was a Ger­man doc­tor­ate, plus the dis­ser­ta­tion was inten­ded as a con­tri­bu­tion to the debate on com­mer­cial courts in Ger­many. That’s why.

Still, they had a point, so I put togeth­er an Eng­lish sum­mary: ‘Should a Dis­pute Be Brought to the Singa­pore Inter­na­tion­al Com­mer­cial Court or to Arbitration?’

I’m pleased to share that it has now been pub­lished in this year’s Zeits­chrift für Zivil­prozess Inter­na­tion­al (ZZP Int (29) 2024, pp. 258 – 312). If the top­ic interests you, do have a look.

SICC or Arbitration?

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On 9 November 2024

In Law, Singapore

My doc­tor­al dis­ser­ta­tion has been pub­lished as an e‑book and in print. Its title trans­lates as ‘SICC or Arbit­ra­tion? A Com­par­is­on of Pro­ceed­ings in the Singa­pore Inter­na­tion­al Com­mer­cial Court with the Advant­ages and Dis­ad­vant­ages of Inter­na­tion­al Arbit­ra­tion Pro­ceed­ings’. It does what it says on the tin, so here’s just a bit of background.

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Arbitrators: Balancing Active Engagement and Party Autonomy

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On 21 October 2024

In Law

I was back in Kuala Lum­pur for Asia ADR Week 2024 and an Oxford-style debate on the top­ic of ‘The Extent and Lim­it­a­tions of Arbit­rat­ors’ Dis­cre­tion­ary Powers’.

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On the Diminishing Importance of Humanity in Arbitration

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On 30 July 2024

In Law

Last week­end the Asia ADR Sum­mit was held in Kuala Lum­pur. I had the hon­our and pleas­ure of par­ti­cip­at­ing in an Oxford-style debate on the top­ic: ‘This House believes that “human­ity” is dis­pens­able in arbit­ra­tion, and arti­fi­cial intel­li­gence will sup­plant arbit­rat­ors in the future’.

Here is my state­ment and my rebuttal.

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From Munich with Law: My Way to a Doctorate

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On 26 April 2024

In Law

If you know me, you know that I don’t always do things in life in the ortho­dox order. After passing my first state exam­in­a­tion in law at the begin­ning of 2001, I wanted to do a doc­tor­ate. In fact, I had already made sev­er­al pre­par­a­tions for it. But then life inter­vened and took me from Ham­burg to Singa­pore. Which was fine, and I soon aban­doned the idea of becom­ing a Doc­tor of Law and con­cen­trated on my second state exam­in­a­tion, then my career, and whatever else was hap­pen­ing in my life (which, as life goes, wasn’t all smooth sail­ing). A while ago, how­ever, I picked up the idea again and pur­sued it fur­ther. Yes­ter­day I was in Munich for my oral doc­tor­al exam­in­a­tion at Lud­wig Max­imili­an Uni­ver­sity (LMU). I’m happy to report: I made it.

Me last night at the Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich (symbolic picture).

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Courts and Tribunals and the Amicable Settlement of Disputes in Singapore

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On 22 September 2023

In Law, Singapore

May courts or arbit­ral tribunals engage in the amic­able set­tle­ment of dis­putes between parties? More spe­cific­ally, may a Singa­pore court or arbit­ral tribunal act­ively do so? What do the inquis­it­ori­al pro­cesses men­tioned in the law have to do with it?

I have set out my thoughts in an art­icle that the Ger­man Arbit­ra­tion Journ­al (Schieds­VZ) has just pub­lished in its September/October 2023 issue.

Sup­ple­ment­al: Kluwer Arbit­ra­tion Blog has pub­lished a sum­mary of the article.

The galley proofs of my article ‘On the Powers of Courts and Arbitral Tribunals in the Amicable Settlement of Disputes by the Parties: A Look at Singapore and Selected Other Countries’. Inquisitorial processes are the key.

Enforceability of Foreign Emergency Awards in Singapore

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On 26 August 2019

In Law, Singapore

An arbit­ral award made by an emer­gency arbit­rat­or sit­ting in Singa­pore is enforce­able in Singa­pore. The law is clear on this.

How­ever, the law is less clear on for­eign emer­gency awards. Are they enforce­able in Singapore?

Patrick Dahm (emergency arbitrator, among other things) caught by a CCTV camera taking a picture of himself on the CCTV screen

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On Arbitration, Football and Vacuum-Cleaning Robots

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On 7 December 2018

In Law

The Singa­pore Insti­tute of Arbit­rat­ors invited me to debate the fol­low­ing motion: ‘This House Believes That Arti­fi­cial Intel­li­gence Will Have Replaced Arbit­rat­ors with­in Twenty-Five Years’. In short: can – will – algorithms replace arbit­rat­ors with­in a generation?

We were debat­ing this last night. Here are my open­ing and clos­ing statements.

Group picture of the debaters, the judges and the moderator, all arbitration practitioners

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BeA – Insecure Professional Communication for German Lawyers

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On 6 September 2018

In Law

As of this week, Ger­man law­yers are required to use an elec­tron­ic com­mu­nic­a­tion tool designed espe­cially for them: the spe­cial elec­tron­ic law­yers’ mail­box (beson­deres elektron­isches Anwalt­s­post­fach or beA). The prob­lem is that the beA is inher­ently insec­ure, so it seems bet­ter to avoid using it. This would include, if pos­sible, not lit­ig­at­ing before a Ger­man court if there’s a chance that the oppon­ent or the court might use the beA in the pro­ceed­ings. This seems all the more appro­pri­ate where there is a risk of snoop­ing or foul play by the oppon­ent or third parties, or where the stakes are high – and when aren’t they?

My beA card
One card to bring them all and in the dark­ness bind them

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Guerrilla Tactics in Arbitration

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On 5 April 2018

In Law, Scribblings

I don’t like how we use the term guer­rilla tac­tics in inter­na­tion­al arbit­ra­tion. Refer­ring to guer­rilla dis­ap­prov­ingly implies meth­ods of tra­di­tion­al war­fare are alright. Artil­lery or old-school tac­tic­al form­a­tions – okay. Sneaky ambushes or hit-and-run attacks – not okay.

Japanese premises at night, approached by ninjas
The place of the hear­ing at night

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Two birds in a dispute

How Do We Resolve Disputes? What’s with Those Algorithms?

By

On 10 January 2017

In Law

This really very long and quasi-aca­dem­ic post is based on a speech I gave to MBA stu­dents of the Man­age­ment Devel­op­ment Insti­tute of Singa­pore some­time in 2016. Sub­ject: how do we resolve dis­putes and what bor­ders, geo­graph­ic­al or oth­er­wise, do we cross in doing so? Bor­ders and oth­er­wise, ged­dit, I was talk­ing about dis­pute res­ol­u­tion in cyber­space and algorithms.

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Singapore to Ratify Hague Convention on Choice of Court Agreements

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On 10 May 2016

In Law, Singapore

Here’s my piece on Singa­pore’s rat­i­fic­a­tion of this Con­ven­tion on Peter Ber­t’s dis­pute res­ol­u­tion blog.

The National Coat of Arms of Singapore
The Supreme Court of Singapore

Singapurischer Internationaler Handelsgerichtshof eröffnet

By

On 7 January 2015

In Law, Singapore

Anfang 2015 wurde der Singapur­ische Inter­na­tionale Han­dels­gericht­shof (Singa­pore Inter­na­tion­al Com­mer­cial Court oder SICC) eröffnet. Das Gericht ist als Teil des singapur­ischen Supreme Court für inter­na­tionale Han­dels­sachen zuständig und ver­eint schiedsgericht­liche und gericht­liche Ele­mente. Singapur will dam­it seine Pos­i­tion als inter­na­tionales Streit­sch­lich­tung­szen­trum ausbauen.

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‘Language’ Difficulties between Civil Law and Common Law

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On 28 November 2014

In Law

Parties to a leg­al dis­pute may believe they under­stand each other’s legalese or the leg­al ‘etiquette’ applic­able. When really they don’t. This may hap­pen when a party from a civil law jur­is­dic­tion sets foot in a com­mon law envir­on­ment, or vice versa. In inter­na­tion­al arbit­ra­tion pro­ceed­ings, for example.

Appar­ently the High Court of Singa­pore had to decide a case just like this.

Court scene: a barrister (cross-)examining a witness

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A Grain of Civil Law – Some (Not So) New Chords for the International Arbitration Jazz

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On 1 October 2014

In Law

Scene in Italy: group of children free-riding the tram
Faster, cheap­er

Inter­na­tion­al arbit­ra­tion has a prob­lem: pro­ceed­ings that take too long and are too expens­ive. To help solve this we should com­bine the best aspects of civil law and com­mon law pro­ced­ure better.

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The Midnight Clause in International Arbitration

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On 18 June 2014

In Law

This is my speech at the In-house Con­gress in Jakarta, Indone­sia, on 23 April 2014. It was on why it’s import­ant your com­mer­cial con­tracts con­tain an arbit­ra­tion clause that works well.

Full moon at midnight

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